1. Field
This invention relates to a coil forming device of a reform chamber, in particular for a wire rod mill. The invention can be installed in new mills to provide capability for dividing the coil without the tall reform area required for a reform tub shear, or can be used to allow an upgrade in existing mills.
2. Description of Related Art
In certain mills, the operators are sufficiently familiar with the mill's operation to be able to determine the steel billet requirement to produce a full coil without further calculation, so avoiding the need to cut the rod after manufacturing the coil. However, these older mills may wish to upgrade, both to benefit from more efficient technology and to offer a broader range of products to their customers. For example, rather than offering only full coils, they may wish to produce half coils, or coils of a customer specified weight. In order to do this, they need to run the input continuously and cut the rod at the correct point to achieve the required coil weight. The coil forming is carried out in a reform chamber. To cut the continuous rod requires the provision of a shear after the coil forming stage, the shear and other moving parts typically have separate power and control systems to operate them, all of which add to the cost and each stage takes up space which may be at a premium. In a typical reform chamber, a set of retractable supports or fingers, also known as an iris, is used to temporarily support the coil when it begins to fall into the chamber, so that a previously-collected coil can be removed from below the chamber. The iris can also be used to interrupt the collection of the rings for the purpose of separating the coil, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,076.
Retrofitting a reform tub with one or more support irises and a shear can be a problem because the older mills do not have sufficient vertical height where the existing reform chamber is to fit the reform tub with irises and shear. To overcome this, the only option is to dig out the floor beneath, as the mill equipment above cannot be moved. On new mills, it is advantageous to minimize the height of the reform station at the end of the conveyor to reduce the cost of foundations and other structures.